randoms

Pizza Time

Hey, y’all. 🙂

Sorry for the longer than norm absence.  I just haven’t felt like blogging.  Lupus fatigue and other stuff.

Shall we catch up? 😉

First though, Happy Birthday, Mama B.  I love you so much. 🙂

I say this all the time but in the grand parental lottery we hit the supper dupper jackpot with ours. 🙂  Mama B, you.are.everything and I know I can speak for Sister B and even Papa B when I say none of us would be half the people we are without your constant unconditional love, compassion and support.  I love you. 🙂

Made up the dough and balls the night before. One thing I’ve noticed when using gjJules flour with cookies…they turn out and hold together so much better if you chill the dough over night.

She wanted her usual batch of B-Day chocolate chip cookies instead of a cake so I made our fam fav Neiman’s cookies using gfJules flour.  As you can see it worked perfectly in yet another recipe.  🙂

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What in the expletive is this supposed to be?  I wouldn’t wear this if they paid me the $155.

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Ran out of my beloved Hawaiian Mac Oil.  Thank you, CA for replacing my stash. Love you. 🙂

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Y’all supporters are so…well mostly sad but also funny.  Throwing your support behind this failure just because he’s as racist as you are.  Sad…but still funny.

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Can somebody explain those Hadid model people to me…twitter style in 140 characters or less?  Like what do they do?  Are they like Kardashians…talentless semi pretty people famous for basically doing nothing but looking semi pretty?

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Now…about that pizza. 🙂

Overnight icebox rise.  That looks weird.  I had tucked the dough all up in a ball and that’s how it opened up as it rose.

6 inch pans.  The little specs you see are spices in the dough.

Bottom didn’t get quite crisp enough for me so I did the skillet crisping trick for about 2 minutes. Perfecti.

So remember when I ordered all those gfJules mixes after Christmas? Well this was one of them.  Now before I say anything else let me say that I’m sure the recipe on the box works great but I’m far too much of a pizza snob to ever put egg whites in my pizza dough.  Again this is my preference.  You do you and don’t worry about me. 😉

Most of my new readers lately end up here by searching for Jules flour so I’m sharing this to show that it even works doing something different with it.  If you read the old blog you know my fav homemade pizza dough is the mock Pizza Hut pan pizza dough.  I know.  I just said I’m a pizza snob and I love Pizza Hut dough.  That’s right.  Shoot me.  On second thought all these pieces of human garbage running around shooting people…no don’t do that.  😉

If you’re not familiar with that dough recipe it’s been going around since the mid 80’s…although when I went to find a link for it here I found several fairly new blogs posting it like it was something the blogger just created themselves yesterday.  Whatever.  Plenty of us have been making it since the 80’s and know y’all are lying.

Anyway…if you’re not famil with it it’s just flour, dry milk, yeast, sugar, salt, oil, water and then PAM type spray for the edges.

I’m gonna add what I did in recipe form at the end of the post but I just used 1 pizza pack (each box has 2) for the flour, sugar and salt. Added my own milk powder (I use Peak dry whole milk powder), yeast and water.

Side note…Jules has some sort of dairy free powder included in the mix but we’re not dairy free and I mean really have we not met? I don’t do dairy free. 😉

It turned out fantastic.  Her pizza mix has spices already in it (like garlic and oregano) and it smelled so strong when I mixed it up.  I was honestly a little worried about it…but it’s perfectly seasoned.  Even Mama B was able to eat it and she’s super sensitive to overly seasoned stuff.

If you’re looking at the Jules mixes and have to pick one or 2 to try I say go with the pizza and pancake mixes.  You won’t be sorry.  🙂

That’s all for now. 🙂  Y’all have a good weekend and I’ll see you soon. 🙂

Music for Mama, B. She loved(loves) this song and to this day every single time I hear it I think about her, Neelie, Marsha.  🙂

Pan Pizza Dough Using gfJules Pizza Dough Mix

1 pack of gfJules Pizza Dough Mix

2 tbsp dry Milk Powder

1 tsp dry Yeast

1 tbsp Oil

1/2 cup warm Water

3 tbsp Oil (for pans split between each pan)

PAM type spray for edges

Directions

This made 2 six inch pan pizzas.

I mixed everything up with my hand mixer with dough hooks for 5 minutes.

Let rise on the counter til it almost doubled then into the icebox overnight.

Dived dough and shaped.

Transferred shaped pizza dough to pans.

Sprayed all around the dough edges with Crisco butter spray.

Didn’t do a rise at all.

Baked at 375* in the convection oven without toppings for 10 minutes then with toppings about 15 additional minutes.

Bottom wasn’t as crispy as I like (because I used regular pans instead of cast iron) so I heated a skillet to med-high and heated the pizza for about 2 minutes.

Ice Cream Bread

Hey, y’all. 🙂

I wasn’t feeling well last week but hopefully this week will be better.

Early voted even though I wasn’t feeling well.

Just a couple of reminders during this election period.  🙂

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Gathered up a couple of loads of clothes to donate…in my case to the women and children’s shelter.  Sharing this just as a reminder that now is a great time of year to go thru your stuff and see what you and your children can share with someone less fortunate. 🙂

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Started watching 11.22.63.  If you’re not familiar it’s a new hulu original produced by Stephen King and JJ Abrams where crazy James Franco’s character travels back in time via a diner pantry to the early 60’s in order to try to stop Oswald from allegedly 😉 killing Kennedy.  Just the kinda crazy you’d expect from James Franco. 😉  The premier ep was pretty good.  Not digging the rollout though, hulu. If this is gonna be weekly eps instead of releasing them all at once like Amazon and Netflix do then we’re  just gonna wait til all the eps are out in few weeks. Get with it, hulu.  If we want to watch traditional style TV we’d just watch regular TV.

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RIP, Harper Lee.  🙁

Over the last 2 days I’ve seen or heard some of the most hateful racist people referencing To Kill A Mockingbird / posting meme’s…ect in a positive way.  Makes me wanna scream.  Some of y’all need to reread the book because y’all ARE the horrible people from the book.

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Do y’all like Annie’s Gluten – Free mac and cheese ?  I really like the deluxe one in the blue box with the squeeze packet of cheese.  The purple box?  Not so much.  Mama B likes the shells shape the best though but always wants me to make homemade cheese sauce for her.  So I end up with a bunch of left over powdered cheese packets.

What should I do with them?

 

Make cheesy bread of course. 🙂

Look at that.  No holes.  Just soft chewy stretchy buttery bread. 🙂

The dough I’ve been playing around with.  For this batch I mixed in the Annie’s cheese packet plus some parm.  I’m running out of words to express how good the gfJules flour is working for well everything but esp this dough.  Made some of it into garlic toast to go with gluten – free shrimp alfredo for Lent Friday…over rice because I didn’t feel like messing with boiling pasta.  And guess what? The whole fam loved it over rice.  That made me really happy because sometimes I just absolutely hate messing with boiling gluten – free pasta.

Ignore the writing on the Saran wrap…it was for something else.

I’m not happy with these pics but I’m sticking them in to show how versatile the dough was.  The next day I used the rest of that batch to make a cheeseburger roll.

Now to the title of this post…Ice Cream Bread.

Have y’all made this?  I’m probably way late to this one but when I saw it last week I had to give it a try.

1 1/2 cups Self Rising Flour**

2 cups melt-y Ice Cream any flavor I used vanilla

Sprinkles I used a spring mix

**I used 1 1/2 cups gfJules flour plus 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt per cup to make homemade self rising flour.

so for this particular recipe

1 1/2 cups flour

2 1/4 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 plus 1/8 tsp Salt

It’s kinda like banana bread consistency.

Ok I’m only posting this to show that it can be done gluten – free…but having made it and tasted it…I’m honestly not sure why anyone would want to do this.  It was interesting and looked pretty but it was also pretty blah.  Maybe if I’d used a stronger flavored ice cream and different add ins it might have been better but I really can’t imagine ever making this again to test it out.  I can’t be wasting my Blue Bell like that.  😉

Hope y’all have a great week…if you’re in Texas go early vote…and I’ll see ya soon. 🙂

Catching Up

Hey, y’all. Are you staying safe and warm?

It’s supposed to get up into the 70’s for us this weekend.  I’m so happy.  I hate this cold weather. It’s nice for a couple of weeks but it’s time for it to go back where it came from.

So when we last met I was heading out for a TNE procedure.

Looking out the window of the office.  I don’t know if y’all can see that in the bottom pic but it’s a rainbow that went from down in the trees on one side of the road to down in the trees on the other.  When I saw it I thought maybe it was a sign that things were going to be ok.

Well that turned out to be a disaster. The scheduling doctor’s office didn’t make it clear that I needed the scope that goes all the way into the stomach and when I got there all they could do was the scope that only goes the to the bottom of the esophagus. I need both scoped and can’t have it done two separate times. So now I’m having trouble getting scheduled somewhere else where they can do the entire procedure. I’ve had several good long cries and I just feel like this is never going to end. 🙁

But let’s not dwell on that…and get on with the randoms. 🙂

Are any of y’all addicted to this tea?  My addiction is getting out of hand so I’m trying to wean off of it.

So I bought some of this and am filling up the empty bottles.  Yes, it has Splenda. No I do not care. 🙂  It has the Splenda in the bag.  You just steep it and it sweetens at the same time.

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Love this so much. 🙂

So thankful for my once in a lifetimes. 🙂

If you know me in real life or followed the old blog you know I love all things UK and love love love me some britcom Coupling.  There’s this episode where Sally (who is obsessed with aging) has to go to a funeral and says something about how she’s scared to be around all the elderly people there because they’ll be like the desert trying to soak up all of her moisturizer.

Had to take Papa B to the SAS shoe store…and felt so much like Sally. 😉

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So Cruz wants to sit down with Trump one on one? That ought to be riveting television.

Cruz: me.

Trump: Me.

Cruz: ME!

Trump: ME ME ME ME ME ME ME!!!!!!!!!!

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Went to London and Germany today. 😉  This grocery store I go to has what they call the Ethnic aisles.  They added stuff from the UK and Germany.  The can is rice custard pudding and the box is boil n bag potato dumplings.  Can’t wait to try them out.  This particular box of dumplings had an English list of the ingredients stuck over the German list printed on the box and they’re all celiac safe but they had some other brands that were not safe.

On the baking front…

I wish y’all could feel how soft and stretchy these are.

Gluten – free rolls to go with Mama B’s gluten – free fried chicken bits.

Used part of the dough for the rolls and the rest for these cinnamon rolls.  An early Valentine’s Day treat.

I’m playing around with the gfJules flour and dough.  I’ll share when I get this where I want it. 🙂

BTW…big congrats to Jules…the flour and mixes won a bunch of awards last week. 🙂

Okay that’s all for today.  Stay warm and I’ll see ya soon.  🙂

Keeping with the UK theme…you’re welcome for the earworm. 😉

 

 

Hodgepodge and Raisin Bread

Hey, y’all.

So when we last met I was getting ready for the Scleroderma specialist appointment I’d waited 3 1/2 months for.

I didn’t take a bus instead I took…

That’s right this spoiled girl took the metro. It wasn’t bad.  I parked at a park n ride right at the train stop and then it dropped me off literally right in front of the office.

Riding by Reliant.  A lot of good things (and days of my life) happened in the building on the right (the Astrodome) not so much in the one on the left. 😉 Y’all can call it NRG.  I’ll keep right on calling it Reliant.

Anyway the appointment went really well.  She was one of the best doctors I’ve ever seen.  The appointment was almost 2 hours long and that was 2 hours spent in the room WITH the doctor. She went over every single thing that’s happened from day one with my lupus, celiac and everything in between.  She ordered some more tests which left my arm looking like this…

And tomorrow I’m going back to see an ENT in the same group of doctors for a Transnasal Esophagoscopy (a non-sedated endoscopy thru the nose).   If everything comes back ok or no worse than the original blood work / scans then she said that right now she’ll classify me as having mild sclero and it’s predominately internal.  The only skin issue I have is dry / disappearing lips.  (They’ve shrunken up and like into my face over the last few months.)

She was a dream and I feel so much better and feel like no matter what comes back from the testing I know I’ll be in good hands.  🙂

Stopped at Fuddruckers after the appointment and this note about them being the official hamburger of the Texans is on the cups.  Uhmm I’m gonna go ahead and suggest a switch to Whataburger next season.  😉

RIP Glenn Frey. 🙁  Such sad sad news.  Not only was he an awesome singer / musician but he and his wife gave both a lot of time and money to the Lupus foundation.

If you love music and have never watched the docu History of the Eagles…you should.  Like tonight. 🙂

If you’re a sports fan you’re probably at least a little bit familiar with the ‘mess’ that is Bill Simmons.  He says it best though in this article he wrote about the docu…”In my humble opinion, it’s the finest documentary ever made about the rise and fall of a memorable rock band, as well as a superb commentary on the dangers of fame and excess.”  Right on, BS.  Right on.  He says at the time of the article he’s watched part one five times.  I know we’ve at least equaled that in the texas girl home. 🙂

Hey, Sister B.  Look familiar?  🙂

Did y’all see this story going around last week? This Mom knit a doll that looks like her son so she can hug it since her son is older and doesn’t want to cuddle with her anymore.  I hope she’s also setting aside some money for therapy.  So creepy.

Snapped this while sitting at a red light.  What do y’all think they serve at ‘Hoggs n Chicks – a fine food shack’ ?

Remember last week when I showed y’all the gfJules mixes I ordered? Well I’ve tried two more…

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The pancake mix which I made into blueberry waffles.

And…

Have y’all ever made bread with Ginger ale as the liquid? I’ve made a lot of bread in my life and had never seen this before.

I did a long overnight icebox rise.

I wish there was a way to show you how soft the inside of this bread is.  There’s also no doubt that it would have risen to a full size loaf if I had the right size pan.  My bread pan is smaller so I had to bake part of the dough as a round otherwise I knew it would have never baked all the way thru.

So I took the bread mix and turned it in to raisin bread by adding some sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and raisins.  It. Is. Fabulous.  Since it was the first time using the mix I went light on everything I added to it but next time I will definitely add more cinnamon inside the mix.  It wasn’t cinnamon-y enough for me at all so I just made raisin bread cinnamon toast.  I can’t wait to make plain bread with the mix.  Good thing I ordered three boxes. 🙂

That’s all for today.  See y’all soon. 🙂

 

 

 

Homemade Hot Chocolate

Hey, Y’all how’s your Tuesday going?

Hope you had the best holiday weekend. 🙂

We did our usual Tex – Mex fiesta.  That’s my sad plate. 🙁

One of my fav gifts.  🙂  Have y’all seen these coloring books for adults?  Supposedly it’s supposed to help you zen out.  Surprisingly it does kinda work.  I didn’t realize it was that big of a deal until I wanted some different coloring pencils and Hobby Lobby told me they’d been sold out for a couple weeks.  Even Amazon is backordered til late January (for the wax pencils).

My favorite gift…

Every year Papa B gives us each a fun or silly gift that he picks out without Mama B’s help. 😉  Sometimes they are super crazy but this one…is perfect.  Thanks, PB. 🙂  I collect pigs.  It says Barnyard Diva on the front and Raised in a barn and proud of it on the back. 🙂

So…I have this new mug and need something to put in it. 😉  What’s a girl to do?  Make some homemade hot chocolate mix of course.

1 1/2 cups dry milk

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 cup white choc chips

1 large box chocolate pudding mix

Have y’all seen that recipe?  You food processor dry milk, cocoa powder, powdered sugar, white chocolate chips and this wasn’t in the recipe but I added a large box of chocolate pudding mix til all powder-y and almost smooth.  The chocolate chips don’t completely break down but they melt quickly when you make up the hot chocolate.  Then when you want to make a cup of hot chocolate you mix 1/3 cup of the mix with 1 cup boiling water.  This is definitely a keeper.  The reason I added the pudding mix is because normally when I make hot chocolate I use more than a little heavy cream to make it thicker.  I can’t have anything really heavy or rich right now but still wanted a thick hot chocolate.

The latest in my ongoing testing of gfJules gluten – free flour.  Look at those bubbles. 🙂  I’m really loving this flour.

Randoms

  • “A perfect storm of errors” ? That’s how we’re describing the MURDER of a child now? Disgusting. That poor mother. Hell is too good for these authority figures a$$holes running around MURDERING kids. Way too good.

 

  • Ya know…the last time I checked you can’t just walk into a police station…tell them you want to be a cop and have them respond by handing you a gun and a badge.   Y’all are supposed to be highly trained individuals. If the only way you’re able to take down a TWELVE year old child is to shoot him…well you just completely suck at your job and need to take a seat while someone more qualified gives it a try.

 

  • Newsflash media covering political candidates…unless you were in the room when something happened nothing you say is fact. I don’t care how good you think your sources are…it’s still nothing more than the information those who WERE actually in the room or wherever want you to share. Stop it. Stop acting like what you say is the be all end all.  And those of you giving too much informational power to one person or group of people?  Y’all need to stop that too. 😉

  • Am I the only person in the world who thinks Star Wars is the dumbest thing ever?  Ok maybe not ever but y’all know what I mean. I don’t get it at all.

 

  • Have y’all watched this documentary…Soaked in Bleach?  It’s about Kurt Cobain, a PI and Courtney Love.  Apparently Courtney hired the PI to find Kurt after he checked himself out of rehab.  The PI didn’t believe anything she said and after Kurt’s death he started investigating it as a murder instead of suicide. I’d always thought the ‘Courtney killed Kurt’ stuff was just distraught fans who couldn’t accept the suicide. This docu totally changed my opinion.  I still can’t quite wrap my head around how someone as drugged up as she was at the time could have orchestrated a murder but the ‘evidence’ the PI presents in this docu is just way too much to ignore.  I’m not saying I 100% think she did anything I’m just saying the docu makes me question everything I used to think about it.

Ok that’s all for today.  See y’all soon.  🙂